Sorry guys….
It was too good to be true…
Thanks to @chesatochi I realized that steemworld is shown differently if I check @steemit using chrome or using firefox…
If using firefox I get this:
if using chrome I get this:
Perhaps I clicked on the “x” and I have permanently closed the pop -up window at Chrome… don’t know…
…but @whatsup was right… Seems that “they have no plans of changing their selling rate yet.“
I’ve been Too Fast Eddie…
Man! I cannot believe what I have discovered a few minutes ago!!!!
@steemit has stopped its eternal POWER DOWN!!!!!!
Go to steemworld and check and tell me if I am wrong here!!!
@toofasteddie
President Vit Jedlicka speaking about Liberland at Baruch College – The City University of New York (CUNY) tonight.
Finally some progress on the kitchen of the granny flat where my mother-in-law will be moving into soon!
Breaking things out is usually the fastest part of remodelling and thats true here too. I got to this point in 2 or 3 hours (I was not counting). But let’s rewind and see what I started with.
I guess if you look back in Portugal’s history this is not that surprising, for many years people cooked their food in the kitchen in fireplaces, we have seen this while we were looking for a place to buy.
What surprises me here is that this is a relatively new house, built in the 90’s or so.
The fireplace is something we are never likely to use in the kitchen, moreover it is positioned such that it takes alot of space, space that we could use to put cupboards, the stove etc. and still have a spacious kitchen.
The way the fireplace juts out by the window got me thinking that it may actually have been an afterthought, so may break out easily. I was dreading trying to chop through tons of concrete!
The pipe in the chimney was there for the fireplace thats in the lounge. They decided to change the route of that fireplace’s chimney and take it straight up. Odd, but then there are a few things with this house that have me scratching my head!
Just closer shots of the inside of the fireplace, quite a simple one, but the cast concrete had me worried a bit too.
Looking straight up the chimney. The hole through the bricks was for the fireplace in the lounge I mentioned earlier.
You can see from the colour that this fireplace has not been used in some time.
Here is about all I needed, excluding gloves, which were in my pocket.
Safety equipment
Here is the only shot I took of the progress 🙁 I was using the fan to try blow some of the dust out of the window. Without it the room gets a terrible haze of dust.
I start at the bottom, cut a slot, with the large disc I could fortunately cut right through the brick. Cutting a few lines weakens enough that a few shots with the hammer is enough to loosen bricks and break them out.
Aaaand done! Well almost. I have a bit of cleanup to do, actually a lot of cleanup to do. My suspicions were confirmed. The fireplace was added later, behind it the wall was mostly rendered and in the top corner the cornice continues, you cannot see it because its all black though.
Crash bash and smash, now the cleanup…..
Can anyone say dust? This is why you close doors and take EVERYTHING out of the room when you cut with one of these discs. There is no stopping this dust, it gets everywhere.
Thankfully it’s an old fan that someone left at the house, look at how fine that stuff is, toxic.
I need safety boots, I had a few bits fall down and roll over my feet as they broke off the wall. At least the door stopped the worst of the dust.
The mask was not exactly clean before, now it needs new filters for sure. The hat is maybe the best example here, a bit of perspiration and its gone completely brown, just from dust settling on it.
More to follow, soon I hope. I need to clean off that wall, fix the holes, then render the missing patches. As well as block the hole where the chimney went.
Finally paint and this will be done!!
One doesn’t have to be British to know the drama that’s been going on in England the last two years due to Brexit.
Even Richard Branson got into the mix stating that if England leaves the EU it would devastate his company and the British Pound. Richard believes if England leaves the EU, the British Pound is going to parity against the US dollar.
Let me throw a curve ball at you, what if the US and China never reach a trade deal? On Wednesday China urged the Trump administration to “make up its mind” about reaching a trade deal with Beijing and warning that additional tariffs could send negotiations further off track.
Not only will that hurt the British Pound, but the entire EU. Because the Japanese Yen is considered a safe haven currency, in times of geopolitical or financial turmoil, the Japanese Yen tends to gain against its peers.
The chart suggests to continue to short GBP/JPY at the daily supply at 135.75.
This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.
Dear Steemians,
Today I want to talk to you about a nice website if you feel like betting or gambling !
Every bet is auditable through the running code (see below)
This is a nice addition to make you willing to trust a third party.
On their Platform you can play:
This is suppose to increase the value of the Token over the long term.
Play on a fair STEEM CryptoGaming website !
Join this new Free To Play on the STEEM Platform !
United Rentals, Inc., through its subsidiaries, operates as an equipment rental company that services construction and industrial companies, by renting out backhoes, forklifts, earthmoving equipment, and material handling equipment, scissor lifts, crossing plates, line testing equipment for underground work, electrical distribution equipment, etc.
Three months ago I wrote a post,
United Rentals…Another Great Economic Barometer
where I talked about, like Caterpillar, United Rentals is a great barometer of the economy. United Rentals their earnings report, United Rentals said they were still on target with the 2019 targets, however, the charts suggested to short the stock at the daily supply at $140.
Price did fall from the zone, but never hit the suggested target price. Yesterday, United Rentals announced their second quarter earnings reported profits above Wall Street expectations, but cut the top of their guidance range for the year. Because the supply level hasn’t been breached, the chart suggested to short price again, with a confirmation below the $128 level which served as support/resistance.
This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.
Part 1 can be found here: Give me Liberty, or give me Death! – Part 1
A quick recap: In Part 1 we saw that Trump, while not a typical politician, is nonetheless turning on Bitcoin in order to protect that which he holds most dear: his horde of fiat money-based wealth. We saw that governments around the world have turned to age-old propaganda strategies to grab and hold onto power – the very same strategies developed and used by Joseph Goebbels to bring the Nazis to power in 1930s Germany, and to keep them there once in office.
We saw that Liberty – our very right to make our own choices such as “I want to use Bitcoin instead of USD” – is under threat. Today I want to elaborate a little on that threat and on how propaganda is being used to turn the population against its own liberties.
As with yesterday, I will not just be using my own words today. Once again I will stand on the shoulders of giants and borrow their words in the form of a series of quotes.
You are being lied to. We all are. America is a great example of this, so I will keep this post American in flavour (or should that be “flavor”? 
), because the USA is an example which most of us can relate to.
As I have said before, it is disturbing to see that the US is STILL playing the “Russia = Communist = Enemy” card, a good three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The USSR is long gone and Russia has been a democracy for decades; yet the old “Evil Communist Ruskies” narrative – which is ingrained deep into the psyche of the American populus – is still the go-to rhetoric used by politicians over and over again. What did Goebbels teach us in Part 1?
“THE ESSENCE OF PROPAGANDA CONSISTS IN WINNING PEOPLE OVER TO AN IDEA SO SINCERELY, SO VITALLY, THAT IN THE END THEY SUCCUMB TO IT UTTERLY AND CAN NEVER ESCAPE FROM IT.”
“…THE RANK AND FILE ARE USUALLY MUCH MORE PRIMITIVE THAN WE IMAGINE. PROPAGANDA MUST THEREFORE ALWAYS BE ESSENTIALLY SIMPLE AND REPETITIOUS.”
“THIS IS THE SECRET OF PROPAGANDA: THOSE WHO ARE TO BE PERSUADED BY IT SHOULD BE COMPLETELY IMMERSED IN THE IDEAS OF THE PROPAGANDA, WITHOUT EVER NOTICING THAT THEY ARE BEING IMMERSED IN IT.”
“THE ENGLISH FOLLOW THE PRINCIPLE THAT WHEN ONE LIES, IT SHOULD BE A BIG LIE, AND ONE SHOULD STICK TO IT.”
“IF YOU TELL A LIE LONG ENOUGH, IT BECOMES THE TRUTH.”
This is how the people of the USA continue to be led, or “misled”, if you prefer.
Because there will always be those intelligent enough to question the politicians and their mass media (their tool of manipulation), a defence mechanism has to be put in place. You can’t expect the politicians themselves to run around putting out fires, that sounds too much like hard work, and it could be dangerous if they miss a fire and it grows too big.
No, what they have done is to build a self-defence system into their propaganda; a clever system which is a diabolical as it is ingenious.
As much as the modern Politically Correct Liberals hate to hear this, as nations we tend to differ greatly from one another. We have various physical and mental traits which define us and differentiate us from each other. One of the traits which I admire the most in Americans is their patriotism. The average American is a patriot at heart – someone who loves their country and will readily defend it against attack or ridicule. Perversely, it is this good-intentioned patriotism that the government has re-purposed to serve their evil agenda. By portraying their own interests as “patriotic”, the politicians seek to squash any criticism of them as a ruling class. Therefore, anybody who shouts out against the rulers gets shot down by the crowd, because such a person is obviously “unpatriotic” or “anti-American” – the politicians don’t even have to lift a finger.
Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Those speaking against the ruling class are those who can see through the lies, they are those who seek to make America better and who seek to preserve the liberty of the common man!
For this reason, today I will be focusing on patriotism and what is REALLY means – NOT what the politicians say it means!
That was a slightly lengthy, but necessary introduction. I hope that you are now in the right frame of mind to read these quotes which I have sourced for you. Let’s now take a look at patriotism, liberty, politics and a few related topics, as seen through the eyes of those who are well qualified to speak on these topics:
Let us begin with a stark reminder that we can’t just rest on our laurels and expect freedom to continue as a way of life:
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
~Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson remains my favourite US president of all time: a true visionary and a true patriot.
Many years later, Reagan echoed Jefferson’s words:
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.
~Ronald Reagan
It is clear that if you wish to live free, you must be prepared to continually fight for your freedom, for there will be a continuous stream of tyrants who would like to take it away and enslave you. The next two men quoted knew all too well what I’m talking about:
There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.
~Nelson Mandela
Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you’re a man, you take it.
~Malcolm X
Lincoln was another one of the great American Presidents. Like Jefferson (and Bit Brain) he was a visionary who could see the path of the future long before it actually happened:
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
~Abraham Lincoln
The government does not seek to protect your liberty through its laws, it seeks to limit and restrain you. Just look at Bitcoin and crypto regulations in the US! Do those regulations really help you as a crypto investor, or do they hinder you? Is your government for you, or against you? Is it infringing on your liberties?
Liberty has never come from Government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.
~Woodrow Wilson
I speak out against representative democracies all the time, for they are “democracies” only in name. Since the majority of people have no actual say in the running of their countries, most modern democracies have decayed into socialism in democratic clothing. They preach “democracy” yet display socialism. Look at the quote below, then decide which you think America is today: Democratic or Socialist.
Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.
~Alexis de Tocqueville
Once again, Jefferson hits the nail right on the head:
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
~Thomas Jefferson
CLEARLY something is VERY wrong with our modern “democracies”! For starters: they are no longer democratic!
You have no say in government. They do not listen to you! Voting is a voting designed to placate you through the illusion that you have a say. Try to change a law. Try to ignore a rule. See how much say you really have! Politicians dominate your life and make you live according to their rules! Is that how America was supposed to be?
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
~Abraham Lincoln
George Orwell criticised government hypocrisy when he spoke about the same topic in “Animal Farm”. In his book, the pigs (a parody of the ruling class) stated the following:
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
~George Orwell
So do I have a point, or am I just some trouble-stirring, anti-American, unpatriotic communist? Let’s look at a few more quotes to find out:
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.
~Mark Twain
You’re not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it.
~Malcolm X
Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong.
~James Bryce
Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.
~George Washington
Who are the real patriots when government is corrupt: those speaking against them, or the brainwashed masses who have good intentions which have been horribly manipulated? He probably didn’t intend to, but modern day politician Joe Biden gave us the answer:
Fighting corruption is not just good governance. It’s self-defense. It’s patriotism.
~Joe Biden
But let’s steer away from modern politicians, they’re all far too much a part of the broken system. Let’s get back to the good old guys and the non-politicians:
I do this real moron thing, and it’s called thinking. And apparently I’m not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions.
~George Carlin
Remember, these are not internet bloggers, these words come from an American President!
Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else.
~Theodore Roosevelt
Perhaps James Baldwin gave the best description of what patriotism really is:
I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.
~James Baldwin
… and Arthur Schopenhauer gave the best description of what it is not:
Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.
~Arthur Schopenhauer
Indeed, I think that some of the more famous thinkers of their time misunderstood the issue of patriotism and how politicians manipulate it. They grew so bitter because of this that they sadly turned against patriotism altogether. They thought that the misguided masses were the patriots, missing the truth that the real patriots were not the masses supporting government, but rather the intelligent few opposing it:
You’ll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.
~George Bernard Shaw
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
~Samuel Johnson
Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.
~Oscar Wilde
It’s very sad to see the level of frustration that those men were driven to.
So as not to end of a negative note, let’s look at two more quotes of those who properly understood patriotism:
The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously.
~Julian Barnes
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.
~Edward Abbey
I hope that I have sufficiently illustrated the difference between patriotism and “patriotism”. I hope I have shown the difference between being against your government and being against your country. I hope I have shown that to best serve your country, you need to oppose those who seek to oppress you. I hope that I have shown that governments seek to remove your liberties and control you.
It is up to us: (you, me and all the other common folk) to stand up for what is right. Nobody is going to fight this fight for us! Government is Definitely not going to fight For us – they are the main problem!
It would be nice if we had a modern visionary to guide us: somebody who understands Liberty, Patriotism, Politics, Money and even Crypto; luckily for you, you have just such a mentor – you’re reading his blog right now. Mr Mentor tells you this with the utmost certainty: through cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology we can render governments obsolete. We can remove their power and the money supply which enables them. They can’t stop us unless we let them.
The time has come to fight. The time has come to fight for what is right, to fight for our rights!
Through crypto we can let liberty prevail – not governments.
I will be fighting this fight either until we are victorious, or until I draw my final breath. I hope to see you there fighting beside me.
Attribution: Featured Image (Statue of Liberty) by Ana Paula Nardini from Pexels
“The secret to success: find out where people are going and get there first”
~ Mark Twain
“Crypto does not require institutional investment to succeed; institutions require crypto investments to remain successful”
~ Bit Brain
When Whaleshares started up many hated it, many were skeptical, many called it a steemit clone. But im someone that likes giving projects the benefit of the doubt. I gave it a shot and for a while things were going ok. There were promises of massive development, of some kind of secret update that would change everything (still dont know what that is) so i stuck around.
I did my best to talk positive about Whaleshares and to be part of the community and for most part it was enjoyable. I met some great people and some not so great ones but overall the positive camp was much bigger.
Whaleshares in a couple months will be 1 year old and looking back i cant say i see them ever achieving much. There was a lot of promise, there were passionate people involved, there was a solid ground to build upon and a solid idea…
But unfortunately passionate people and solid ideas does not necessarily translate into success.
Lets be honest here. When Whaleshares came to be, it came to be from a few disgruntled individuals that thought they could create a better Steemit. A fairer community with better token distribution and rewards for the best contributors. They thought they would eliminate bots and vote buying..
They were wrong.
They failed so badly that they didnt achieve any of that. Vote buying turned into whaletoken purchases on Bitshares and the fairer token distribution went down the toilet with “curation projects” like V12 lead by Scipio that would basically vote up a post with a small percentage and then upvote the comment on the post in question of the V12 account saying: “You got curated!” (Im paraphrasing) with a full vote.
Then you had guys like Haejin or Vladimir self voting just like on Steemit and nothing was being done about it. Now i dont know if they are still on Whaleshares. I dont care to look but a month ago when i last dropped by that was the case.
The problem with some Whaletokens (Not all allow trading) is that the purchase of a vote would get you around 2 times more WLS then if you purchased WLS directly. This ofc acted as a downward pressure on the price.
What some people did, and what i did for a time is simply sell the WLS i get from powering down, purchase the vote and then again just sell the WLS.
Bam! You just made a 200% return on your purchase and that just compounded over time. All you need to do is repeat this over and over. There was no point in buying WLS. Only selling it.
So those are 2 things..
The biggest issue though, i will talk about next is the behavior of the people heading the project. Again, i have to repeat, the devs in charge are really nice people and i cant say a single bad thing about them in terms of their actions towards me nor have i ever seen them act unfairly to anyone.
But…. i have to touch up on the most important thing which is why im basically done with Whaleshares for now…
<
I have discussed this issue with the devs in the Whaleshares chat, DMs and on chain on a number of occasions and the responses i got were extremely discouraging and showed me a complete lack of understanding of how the crypto market works along with an irrational fear of leaving their small corner of Bitshares.
I will not name names but you can always find the conversations in the Whaleshares discord chat or on chain if youre interested.
I have talked to a number of people and the strange thread of thought they had is the following:
>If WLS gets listed that will lead to whales taking control of Whaleshares and then they can dump WLS and that will destroy the price.
The feeling i got from this is that they want to live in a bubble hidden from the world. They fear they will lose control if investments come in.
That was very strange to see because the price has already tanked by 99.1% in 10 months. (now at $0.003 from a high of $0.33). The smaller your market cap is, the easier it is for anyone to manipulate the market. Someone with a few thousand dollars could do it. Without money coming in all you have is WLS going out, votes being purchased and the price tanking even more.
It seems to me that the unreasonable fear of the market, the fear that Whaleshares will end up like Steemit (in their minds) is the downfall of Whaleshares and WLS.
It is a sorry thing to see from a project that had potential. Sorry even more so because those are some good people there that put in work and dedication to create something “better”. Unfortunately their mindsets are not well suited for success in the world we call crypto.
Just a few thoughts and ill see you guys later.
